In the very beginning, I'd warn people not just to copy the code below, but to be careful with the partition numbers. E.g., /boot is not on hda1 for everybody, some even don't have a special partition for it. Maybe mentioning that booting from live cd and running 'fdisk -l' shows all the partitions is a good idea, too.

- Grub error 15 section:
I'd add some suggestions on how to find out the real name. (Boot from live-cd, mount partitions and ls /boot, or tab completion within the grub shell).

- Grub error 17 section:
This is confusing because the solution belongs to error 12 (typo in the thread you mentioned)
However, error 17 occurs quite often, too, so add some lines asking to check the "root (hdx,y)" entry in grub.conf. Also mention that for booting windows "rootnoverify ..." is the better choice over "root ..." because it works for both fat32 and ntfs.
[edit]last is not correct, see below[/edit]

- Where is my grub.conf
Add a warning that it's not always hda1 and the mount is only needed if people have a separate /boot partition.

- After hitting enter at the grub menu the system reboots
Another possibility is a wrong set cpu type in kernel config, include a link to the faq

- Cannnot open root device "hdaX"
I feel problem and solution don't belong together. The solution should be to check the kernel config containing filesystem-support (reiserfs or similar) _compiled in_, not as module. A wrong or missing root=... can be the case, too. "fdisk -l" to check which one to take.

- Unable to boot into Windows
Your code won't work with NTFS. cyrillic's trick was to omit the "root ..." line and specifying the chainloader line absolute (with leading hd0,1). If you want to include the root line, you have to write it as rootnoverify (and can omit the (hd0,1) in the chainloader line). So it's either

Code:

title=%$@@#$*
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

or

Code:

title=%$@@#$*
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

[edit]
I was wrong with the differences between root and rootnoverify. the manual says

Code:

- Command: rootnoverify device [hdbias]
Similar to `root' (*note root::), but don't attempt to mount the
partition. This is useful for when an OS is outside of the area of
the disk that GRUB can read, but setting the correct root device
is still desired. Note that the items mentioned in `root' above
which derived from attempting the mount will _not_ work correctly.

[/edit]

A last thing, you should mention your thread here if you have not done yet. Maybe people like to add it to the faq.

Last edited by Earthwings on Sun Jan 11, 2004 4:37 pm; edited 1 time in total

So many people seem to have problems with their grub config...
Maybe this collection can help a little bit.

[list]
[*]Grub loading, please wait...
When rebooting you get this message and then grub hangs? But booting of your grub floppy works fine?

Code:

"GRUB loading stage 1.5."
"GRUB loading, please wait..."

According to the_bell you should change the boot order in your bios. Don't first try to boot of your grub floppy.

Excellent list, idoneus, except for this item.

This problem is caused because GRUB doesn't like to be compiled with optimizations. Many people have had this problem with many different distributions. Gentoo, for better or for worse, gets its CFLAGS from /etc/make.conf; most people have the basic optimizations set. emerge grub under those circumstances and chances are good you will get exactly this error.

The problem is especially vexing because GRUB gives *no* error code in this situation.

Personally, I think that grub should not be compiled with any optimizations as a matter of routine practice (it's miniscule - what does it need to be optimized for?) and that instructions to this effect should be included in the install.html file. Better yet -- can't the ebuild be modified to override the default CFLAGS settings, or does that break basic Gentoo principles?[/quote]

Unable to boot into Windows
Your code won't work with NTFS. cyrillic's trick was to omit the "root ..." line and specifying the chainloader line absolute (with leading hd0,1). If you want to include the root line, you have to write it as rootnoverify (and can omit the (hd0,1) in the chainloader line). So it's either

Code:

title=%$@@#$*
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

or

Code:

title=%$@@#$*
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

Actually the code line posted is the one I use to (the few times I'm forced to per year) boot into Windows on a ntfs partition.
So I'm sure this settings work, at least for me.

Yes, I was wrong that it never works with ntfs. Indeed it has nothing to do with ntfs or fat32, see the [edit] part in my first post.

However, it doesn't hurt to take the rootnoverify part for windows, because it'll be more general as you are able to boot even if grub cannot mount the selected partition (I think this is the case when the partition lies behind the 8GB border, but I'm not sure about that).

Cool list Idoneus, thanks for taking the time to create it. One suggestion for the grub error 15 section. It never actually comes out and says that it's the kernel it can't find.

I assumed kernel, took a look @ /boot and it's there just like it says. What else could it be looking for? I fumbeled around for a bit, looked again a little closer and spotted comas instead of dots

It usually wouldn't be a problem, but it's a first time Gentoo install on a 'spare' box with an itty-bitty monitor. Stupid mistake on my part, but if changing a word or two can keep a newbie from getting crazy frustrated it's worth it._________________Proud GNU/Linux user 158149

How is the grub installed in this system? How are the disk's marked? not (hd0) (hd1) that i'm sure?

This means GRUB is not guessing your BIOS devices correctly. You can either use an edited device.map (search the forums for how to do this), or install GRUB while booted from a GRUB floppy (this way GRUB can see the BIOS devices directly without having to guess).

I've just moved Gentoo from a 40gb drive to a 120gb drive. I chroot'd into the hdd and setup grub. Now when I boot, I get "GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB..." continuously. Does anyone know why this error occurs and how I can fix it? I tried installing Debian on the same hdd (with the same partition setup) and LILO only gets to LI before stopping.

Try to suppress /boot from all the lines above, because you are talking about /dev/hda1 and not the mountpoint._________________"I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept." -- Calvin

After installing gentoo, with grub 0.93. When booting grub hangs at Stage 1.5 with error 18. I'm posting this because I didn't find any post regarding error 18 at stage 1.5... After googling a bit, I found a list of grub errors, and it says that error 18 is generated when the kernel being loaded is not compatible with grub... I've recompiled gentoo-dev-sources three times...

I've just moved Gentoo from a 40gb drive to a 120gb drive. I chroot'd into the hdd and setup grub. Now when I boot, I get "GRUB GRUB GRUB GRUB..." continuously. Does anyone know why this error occurs and how I can fix it? I tried installing Debian on the same hdd (with the same partition setup) and LILO only gets to LI before stopping.

It turned out that the problem was a very simple fix. In the BIOS, I had set this device to "Auto" that is, the BIOS was to figure out what device it was a get its parameters accordingly. This was the problem. Changing it to "User Type HDD" fixed the problem. Hope this helps someone else as this problem was very frustrating!

18 : Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by BIOS This error is returned when a read is attempted at a linear block address beyond the end of the BIOS translated area. This generally happens if your disk is larger than the BIOS can handle (512MB for (E)IDE disks on older machines or larger than 8GB in general).

From my expierience, this is 80% of the time caused by an incorrectly configured kernel, specificly either:

[+]IDE chipset (or SCSI controller) support not compiled or compiled as a module (and no initrd).
[+]filesystem support used on root partition not compiled or compiled as a module (and no initrd).
[+]support for MSDOS partition tables not compiled (CONFIG_PARTITION_ADVANCED -> CONFIG_MSDOS_PARTITION)(it happened!)

On fresh installs it's often caused by not having edited /etc/fstab during the install process, and it still contains lines like "/dev/ROOT / ext2 defaults,noatime 0 0".

Solution for both kinds is obviously rebooting the LiveCD or, in the former case, just a sane kernel and fix the configs.

HTH _________________Please put [SOLVED] in your topic if you are a moron.

I've read lots of postings on this problem but I still can't get GRUB to load Gentoo. GRUB has been configured to boot Windows XP on the same drive and it boots fine but Gentoo doesn't. I get the following message: